Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts earns master's degree
It has been a busy year for Philadelphia Eagles' star Jalen Hurts.
The quarterback — who led his team to the Super Bowl last season, and then signed a five-year, $255 million contract in April — is celebrating another achievement: earning a master's degree.
The 24-year-old earned his graduate degree in human relations at the University of Oklahoma, he shared in an Instagram post.
"I Know Momma Proud Of This One..Master of Human Relations ✅," the athlete wrote alongside a gallery of photos from his graduation day.
Dr. David Surratt, university vice president, also commemorated Hurts' academic accomplishment, tweeting a video of Hurts walking to the graduation stage.
In an April interview with Essence magazine, Hurts said his mom, a special education teacher, got her master's degree to keep ahead of the curve.
"She went back to school, and she got her master's to become a counselor," he told Essence. "That's a living testimony for me."
Hurts started his college football career and higher educational journey at the University of Alabama in 2016, where he studied for three years and earned a bachelor's degree in communication and information sciences.
He then transferred to the University of Oklahoma in 2019, where he finished his final year of NCAA eligibility and began working towards his master's.
He was a second-round pick by the Eagles in 2020 and spent the majority of his rookie year as a backup to Carson Wentz. He led the Eagles to a playoff berth in 2021, then to the Super Bowl in February, where the Eagles lost in heartbreaking fashion to the Kansas City Chiefs.
With his new contract, he was briefly the highest-paid player in NFL history on a per-year basis, according to CBS Sports, before being overtaken by Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who signed a five-year, $260 million contract a few weeks later.
